Utilities Are Given a Week to Settle Disputes Over Power Lines

By BRUCE LAMBERT

Published: June 18, 2004

Two disputes over electrical cables across Long Island Sound -- one over the new Cross-Sound Cable that Long Island wants turned on, and the other over an old cable that Connecticut wants replaced -- must be settled within a week or a federal regulatory agency will step in, federal officials said yesterday.

The tale of the two cables unfolded at a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission meeting in Washington.

Although the two cases are separate, the commission's chairman, Patrick Wood III, imposed a one-week deadline on government and utility officials from Long Island and Connecticut to settle the two disputes. If their efforts fail, he said, the commission will issue the final orders it has drafted to decide both cases.

''The chairman tied them together,'' said his spokesman, Bryan Lee. ''We were prepared to take action today, but we're going to hold the orders in abeyance for a week.''

Some of those involved predicted a restoration of current to the 24-mile Cross-Sound Cable from New Haven to Brookhaven, N.Y.

Connecticut officials have opposed use of that cable because bedrock prevented a 740-foot segment from being buried to its planned full eight-foot depth. The Long Island Power Authority, which leases the 330-megawatt cable from TransEnergie U.S. Ltd. for $20 million a year, is eager to use it to meet its growing demand for electricity.

After last year's Northeast blackout, LIPA won an emergency order to turn on the cable, starting Aug. 15. But it was turned off May 9 when Connecticut got the order rescinded on the grounds that an emergency no longer existed. The power authority then appealed to the energy commission to order the cable turned back on, prompting yesterday's hearing.

The Connecticut attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, vowed to fight any move to turn on the electricity.

''Our door is always open to constructive discussion, but an artificial peremptory deadline is an inauspicious omen of possible FERC orders to come,'' Mr. Blumenthal said. The dispute over the other cable -- a 300-megawatt line stretching 11 miles from Norwalk, Conn., to Northport, N.Y. -- has dragged on for years. Installed in 1970, the cable is deteriorating and is sometimes snagged by dragging anchors, causing leaks of a nontoxic fluid coolant and sometimes knocking out service.

Connecticut officials want the old cable replaced by a new one buried below the ocean bottom, at an estimated cost of $80 million.

But the cable's co-owners, Northeast Utilities in Connecticut and LIPA in New York, are at odds. Northeast wants a replacement, but the Long Island authority has not agreed to one. One energy expert said that the cable mostly sends electricity to Connecticut, with limited benefit to the Long Island authority.

The prospects for negotiations are uncertain. But a Northeast spokesman, Mitch Gross, said, ''We hear FERC loud and clear.''

On the new cable, the chairman of the Cross-Sound Company, Jeffrey Donahue said, ''What FERC is doing is making for a potentially complicated discussion with lots of parties, but maybe that's a good thing.''